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Rating: 
Summary: beauty still exists ...
Review: I have today received one of the most beautiful art books I have ever laid my hands on. Artist Paul Caponigro calls it "New England Days". This book contains 76 high quality reproductions of Paul's black and white work.When I did my BFA in Chicago I found my heroes to be Edward Weston, Imogen Cunnigan, Siskind, Callahan. Over the last 15 years I have become considerably disenchanted with contemporary photography, namely the kind of images that graduate students at the so-called "top 5 schools" have been producing. The gate keepers (curators, professors, critics, writers, etc) seem to have forgotten simple beauty. Instead, they have favored "conceptual" work. Conceptual work has been mainstream for the last 50 years. It replaced talent and continues to do so since talent has always been scarce. This book by Paul Caponigro belongs to the tradition of Edward Weston. It is the tradition of simple, beautiful things. Picasso once said that he never spent time looking for solutions, instead he simply found whatever he had to find. And he often found all he needed ... This quality of getting things to come to you without asking is patent in most of the work by Paul. Take plate 34 (Stone Wall, 1960, Polaroid Print) for instance. The low grain, low contrast was the technique used to show something so simple and so beautiful. He is not concerned with volumes, shapes. He is showing us stone simply. The same technique was used to show us Irish megaliths. At the same time there is this calmness, this deep relationship with the subject matter. Plate 51 is perhaps more obvious in intention but no less capable of awakening the deepest sentiments of adoration, of contemplation. Let this book be an example of beauty because it exemplifies the case of the talented artist who has mastered technique and finds a lot of stuff worth seeing ...
Rating:
Summary: beauty still exists ...
Review: New England Days by Paul Caponigro (Godine, $35). For more than 40 years Paul Caponigro has been making black-and-white photographs that teach us how to "hear with the eyes." These 76 prints-made between 1958 and 1999-portray stones, apples, trees, and the sea. They might have been taken 200 years ago. As we study them with quiet attention they take on the rich tones of a cello concerto. This is the most satisfying book of the year. -Michael More, CAMERA ARTS
Rating:
Summary: New England Days
Review: New England Days by Paul Caponigro (Godine, $35). For more than 40 years Paul Caponigro has been making black-and-white photographs that teach us how to "hear with the eyes." These 76 prints-made between 1958 and 1999-portray stones, apples, trees, and the sea. They might have been taken 200 years ago. As we study them with quiet attention they take on the rich tones of a cello concerto. This is the most satisfying book of the year. -Michael More, CAMERA ARTS
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